Review of Exploration Systems Development (ESD) Integrated Hazard Development Process

The Chief Engineer of the Exploration Systems Development (ESD) Office requested that the NASA Engineering and Safety Center (NESC) perform an independent assessment of the ESD's integrated hazard development process. The focus of the assessment was to review the integrated hazard analysis (IHA) process and identify any gaps/improvements in the process (e.g. missed causes, cause tree completeness, missed hazards). This document contains the outcome of the NESC assessment

Governing complexity : Integrating science, governance, and law to manage accelerating change in the globalized commons

The speed and uncertainty of environmental change in the Anthropocene challenge the capacity of coevolving social–ecological–technological systems (SETs) to adapt or transform to these changes. Formal government and legal structures further constrain the adaptive capacity of our SETs. However, new, self-organized forms of adaptive governance are emerging at multiple scales in natural resource-based SETs. Adaptive governance involves the private and public sectors as well as formal and informal institutions, self-organized to fill governance gaps in the traditional roles of states. While new governance forms are emerging, they are not yet doing so rapidly enough to match the pace of environmental change. Furthermore, they do not yet possess the legitimacy or capacity needed to address disparities between the winners and losers from change. These emergent forms of adaptive governance appear to be particularly effective in managing complexity. We explore governance and SETs as coevolving complex systems, focusing on legal systems to understand the potential pathways and obstacles to equitable adaptation. We explore how governments may facilitate the emergence of adaptive governance and promote legitimacy in both the process of governance despite the involvement of nonstate actors, and its adherence to democratic values of equity and justice. To manage the contextual nature of the results of change in complex systems, we propose the establishment of long-term study initiatives for the coproduction of knowledge, to accelerate learning and synergize interactions between science and governance and to foster public science and epistemic communities dedicated to navigating transitions to more just, sustainable, and resilient futures

Making Good Use of Adaptive Management

Over the last two decades natural resource scientists managers and policymakers have increasingly endorsed adaptive management of land and natural resources Indeed this approach based on adaptive implementation of resource management and pollution control laws is now mandated in a variety of contexts at the federal and state level Yet confusion remains over the meaning of adaptive management and disagreement persists over its usefulness or feasibility in specific contexts This white paper is intended to help legislators agency personnel and the public better understand and use adaptive management Adaptive management is not a panacea for the problems that plague natural resource management woes It is appropriate in some contexts but not in others Drawing on key literature as well as case studies we offer an explanation of adaptive management including a discussion of its benefits and challenges a roadmap for deciding whether or not to use it in a particular context and best practices for obtaining its benefits while avoiding its potential pitfalls Following these recommendations should simultaneously improve the ability of resource managers to achieve management goals determined by society and the ability of citizens to hold managers accountable to those goal

Governing complexity: Integrating science, governance, and law to manage accelerating change in the globalized commons.

The speed and uncertainty of environmental change in the Anthropocene challenge the capacity of coevolving social-ecological-technological systems (SETs) to adapt or transform to these changes. Formal government and legal structures further constrain the adaptive capacity of our SETs. However, new, self-organized forms of adaptive governance are emerging at multiple scales in natural resource-based SETs. Adaptive governance involves the private and public sectors as well as formal and informal institutions, self-organized to fill governance gaps in the traditional roles of states. While new governance forms are emerging, they are not yet doing so rapidly enough to match the pace of environmental change. Furthermore, they do not yet possess the legitimacy or capacity needed to address disparities between the winners and losers from change. These emergent forms of adaptive governance appear to be particularly effective in managing complexity. We explore governance and SETs as coevolving complex systems, focusing on legal systems to understand the potential pathways and obstacles to equitable adaptation. We explore how governments may facilitate the emergence of adaptive governance and promote legitimacy in both the process of governance despite the involvement of nonstate actors, and its adherence to democratic values of equity and justice. To manage the contextual nature of the results of change in complex systems, we propose the establishment of long-term study initiatives for the coproduction of knowledge, to accelerate learning and synergize interactions between science and governance and to foster public science and epistemic communities dedicated to navigating transitions to more just, sustainable, and resilient futures

Navigating Local Environments with Global Strategies: A Contingency Model of Multinational Subsidiary Performance

Multinational corporations (MNCs) often pursue global strategies that emphasize efficiency, flexibility, and learning, but globally developed strategies often clash with the environmental idiosyncrasies of MNC country subsidiary markets in which the strategy is actually implemented. Extant research pays little attention to the contingent efficacy of such global strategies from the perspective of MNC country subsidiary markets. We adopt the strategy-environment alignment principle and study how host country task- and institutional environments might influence the efficacy of global strategies for MNC subsidiary performance. We assess MNC subsidiary performance using subjective managerial judgments, and on the basis of recent research on human judgments, we theorize that these judgments embody information about judgment magnitude and uncertainty. A mean-variance function model simultaneously teases out the effects of the explanatory variables on the magnitude and uncertainty of MNC subsidiary performance judgments. To test the hypotheses, we analyze survey data from German and Japanese subsidiaries in the United States. The results support the use of the mean-variance function model and specific theory about the antecedents of performance judgment magnitude and uncertainty. Findings pertaining to interactions between global strategies and the facets of the local country environment reveal ways in which MNCs can adapt “global” strategies to navigate the complex array of country markets they face.multinational corporation, global strategies, environment, judgment uncertainty